Feb. 28, 2004
Feb. 28, 2004 - Stanford hosted Oklahoma Saturday night in Burnham Pavilion. The Sooners had a rough start, but they managed to rally and come out 5.375 ahead of the Cardinal.
Stanford started out on floor exercise, and Oklahoma was on pommel horse. The Cardinal had several excellent performances on the floor. Kelly Lang competed a difficult routine, including a back layout with 2.5 twists, followed by whip back, back layout with 1.5 twists and a front tuck with a full twist and a stuck landing. Finishing wth a high back layout with two complete twists, Kelly scored an 8.950. Besides a fall on his second pass, sophomore Sean Doolan had a good floor routine, competing a front double full, to a front layout, and a tuck full as his first pass and a very difficult front 2.5, or Randy, with a stuck landing for his dismount. Sean scored a respectable 8.650. Dan Gill finished up the floor lineup with one of the best routines of his career. Opening his routine with a double back flip with two full twists, followed by an immediate front flip and a quarter to his stomach. Unfortunately, Dan's powerful tumbling forced him out of bounds on two of his four passes, so he received a 9.400. Dan was runner up to Oklahoma's Jock Stevens, who scored the winning 9.450.
Following a successful floor rotation, the Stanford men moved to pommel horse. Three Stanford gymnasts had good three routines on this event. Nate Downs and Brice Rolsten continued their tradition of performing good routines with extended circles and clean travels in combination with Russians and Russian dismounts. Nate Downs and Brice Rolston scored 9.050 and 9.450, respectively. Dan Gill had a stellar performance tonight, earning the high score of the meet and his personal best for pommel horse. His routine began with a high scissor sequence, followed by several travels. Ending his travel sequence was a Tong Fe, where he reaches from one end of the horse to the other in one circle. Culminating in a stuck dismount, Dan received an impressive 9.750.
The third event for the Cardinal was the still rings. The rings included exceptional performances by four of the six freshman. Josh Goldman and Christian Garnett began the line up with an 8.650 and an 8.700. Both freshman performed two maltese strength moves, good giant swings, and solid dismounts. Peter Derman and Alex Schorsch also displayed great strength. Peter performed one of the most difficult sequences of the meet, which included a kip to maltese, bounce to iron cross, pull out to a second malese. With only a small step on his double layout dismount, Peter scored a 9.250, the highest score for the Stanford team. Alex competed his unique maltese press to planch followed by a second maltese, but some swing at the end of his routine lowered his score to an 8.950.
Vault was a tough event for the Cardinal. Several of the gymnasts fell on their vaults, but 2001 NCAA vault champion Dan Gill performed a Yurchenko double full with a small step. He scored a 9.500, earning him top honors for the meet on that event.
Parallel Bars followed vault, and the two Stanford upperclassmen, Kelly Lang (Junior) and Dan Gill (Senior) led the pack with an 8.750 and a 9.150, respectively. Kelly performed several challenging skills, including a Healy, which is a full turn on one arm from the inverted to the support position, and a stutz to one bar. Dan began his routine with a peach to an immediate stutz to one bar. His clean lines and stuck double pike dismount polished off the routine.
The final event, horizontal bar, included a couple wild dismounts and a winning routine by sophomore superstar, Nate Downs. Brice finished his good routine of stalders and a straddled reverse hecht with a triple back that he almost stuck. Although the crowd was cheering in anticipation for captain Dan Gill's routine, Dan unfortunately missed his first kovacs and attempted an extremely difficult triple twisting double layout dismount and fell short. However, Nate Downs helped the team out by performing his best routine of his career and scoring the highest mark of the meet, a 9.500.
Falling only a few points short of number two ranked Oklahoma ensures that the Cardinal will move up the ranks from its current position of tenth.
Stanford returns to Burnham next weekend for the last regular season home meet. Be sure to come see the Cardinal compete against Penn State.